Profile of fluency in spontaneous speech, reading, and retelling of texts by adults who stutter.
Samuel Lopes da Silva, Luciana Mendonça Alves, Denise Brandão de Oliveira E Britto
PMID 37792751WHAT IT FOUND
For adults who stutter, reading aloud produced significantly fewer common disfluencies like hesitations and interjections than spontaneous speech or retelling.
However, stuttering-specific behaviors and speech speed did not differ significantly across the three tasks. This suggests reading is less demanding for fluency.
Key findings
01Reading aloud resulted in statistically significantly fewer common disfluencies (hesitations, interjections, revisions) compared to spontaneous speech and retelling.
02There were no statistically significant differences in speech speed or in the percentage of stuttering disfluencies between reading, spontaneous speech, and retelling.
03The percentage of speech discontinuities was significantly lower during reading than during spontaneous speech or retelling.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample size was small (15 participants), limiting generalizability. Participants were not categorized by stuttering severity, which could obscure how task effects vary across different levels of impairment. The study did not include a control group of adults who do not stutter, so it describes the profile within the stuttering group rather than comparing it to typical fluency.
Declared interests
None reported.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that reading is a more fluent task overall. While common disfluencies decreased, stuttering-specific behaviors and speech speed remained unchanged, meaning the core stuttering events were not reduced by the reading task.